Founders

Quickly, he pocketed the ring, while he observed Rebecca’s jaunty descent of the last few steps. She was wearing a green light cotton dress and Teva sandals. Her curly hair looked darker than usual, because she had just taken a shower.

Ben smiled and greeted Rebecca, and her eyes sparkled back as she asked where they were going. Ben whispered mysteriously, “We are going for a walk, because I wish to talk to you and show you something.” Ben had said this twice before to Rebecca, so she happily thought it would be another interesting sightseeing adventure. He had seen a lot of the city during his early morning walks and would tell Rebecca of them. She hadn’t yet seen as much of Jaffa as Ben had.

Ben lightly guided Rebecca with his fingers barely touching her elbow, out of the main door of the lobby of the hotel, into the parking lot, around the corner, and down the alleyway to Auerbach Street. From there, they turned left onto the dirty, dingy, “concrete jungle” of Eilat Street. Rebecca disliked this street that often smelled like urine. She preferred grass and yards to only buildings and concrete and always walked quickly, looking forward to reaching the sea. Along Eilat Street there were large Mylar-backed glass storefront windows that reflected like mirrors. As Rebecca and Ben would pass them she would surreptitiously look at herself and Ben and size up whether they looked like a matching couple, and she liked what she saw. Later, she learned that Ben was also sizing them up in those same windows.

They reached the point where Eilat Street Ts off with Professor Yehezkel Kaufman Street. There, they turned right and walked west to the grassy parks of the Tayelet along the Mediterranean. Here the street opened up, with buildings on one side and open lawns on the other, the Tayelet, the beach, and sea. Rebecca loved this part of Tel Aviv–Jaffa. Looking north one could sea the beach curving around the edge of the city of Tel Aviv and its skyline. Looking south one could see the little hill on which Old Jaffa sits and its fishing port. She had read that this was the town where Peter the Apostle visited Cornelius, the God-fearing Gentile who wanted to learn of the way of Salvation after his vision of the sheet and a command allowing the eating of unclean beasts.

The sun was near setting when they reached the sea. The sky was a golden hazy blue, the wind had just reversed its normal flow and was now coming in off of the mainland. It had a lovely warm caress and wonderfully fresh salty smell.

Ben turned Rebecca to the south and they walked the Tayelet toward Old Jaffa. They walked to Retsif HaAliyah HaShniya Street, where they cut back inland until they reached the Clock Tower on Nahum Goldman Street. Walking around the kikar (a traffic circle), they continued walking south until they reached Mifratz Shlomo Promenade. A bit up the promenade, Ben veered off onto the grass and took Rebecca up to the top of the hill to show her the Statue of Faith, a square arch. He pointed out to her how the left side shows Jacob’s Dream; the right, the Sacrifice of Isaac; and the top, the fall of Jericho. Rebecca was fascinated. They walked around some of the ruins on top of the hill of Old Jaffa, then walked down to the Church of Saint Peter. Next, Ben took Rebecca to the restaurant behind the minaret. (Jaffa is mainly an Arab Israeli–Muslim town.)

At Ben’s request, they were given a table out on the balcony overlooking the sea. It was now twilight. They could see the lights of Tel Aviv. They ordered hummus, pita, and mixed salads for their appetizers. Ben and Rebecca loved the many vegetables in the mixed salads: tomato, cucumber, peppers, radishes, lettuce, eggplant, olives, cabbage, and onions. Ben loved to sprinkle zatar on his hummus. For their main course they ordered lamb kabobs on the stick with “cheeptz”—the local name for French fries.

Over dinner, Ben and Rebecca talked of all they had seen and what they had been doing with the Youth Group, their successes in witnessing, how the trip was turning out, and about the things they wanted to do with the Youth Group when they returned home. Ben also talked about what he was planning for his future with his law career, and missionary work, later in life.

After dinner, Ben took Rebecca back out onto the promenade and they walked back up the hill toward the Statue of Faith where it overlooked the sea. He found a private bench, away from the streetlights, where they could have a good view without distracting lights. He invited Rebecca to sit down. They sat quietly together for a few minutes enjoying the view of the city lights, the Mediterranean, and the light breeze. As they looked out to sea, they could also see the navigational lights of airliners stacked up for their approach to Ben Gurion Airport, not far to the south.

As they looked out at the lights, Ben said, “I called your dad this afternoon, and we had a long talk before he went to work. It was nine in the morning his time.”

“A long talk?” asked Rebecca quizzically.

“Yes.”

“And so?”

“So, I asked him for his blessing, and he said yes.”

“That’s kind of a roundabout way of asking me…”

“Yes, but I was getting to that. I mean, I am asking you, I mean…”

Rebecca gave a nod and gently urged, “So what exactly are you asking?”

“You are a gift from the Lord, Rebecca. You’ve become my best friend. I find myself constantly thinking about you. I have thoroughly enjoyed working beside you with the Youth Group and the service projects that we’ve done. I love the way you think! I love communicating with you and can’t wait to ask you questions, getting your opinion and hearing your insights. I have come to love you with all my heart and soul. I would be incredibly blessed if you would become my wife. I believe that the two of us together will be a strong team for furthering Adonai’s Kingdom.”

Ben then reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring, saying deliberately, “I want to give you something that I found on the beach this morning during my quiet time. I have been praying for you and about you for more than a year now. I’ve been asking Adonai for the timing and the confirmation. And seeing how much you love God’s creation and enjoy finding perfectly created natural objects, I believe this find is a gift to us, a gift to you from the Lord. It is His confirmation for us to marry.”

He held out the seashell, clutched between his thumb and forefinger.

Unexpectedly, Rebecca extended her ring finger, and Ben slid it on. She gave a gentle laugh, as she carefully turned the ring around on her finger and murmured, “It’s beautiful, Ben! So perfectly shaped and such a pure unblemished white! You really just found this on the beach this morning? It’s a miracle. I believe it is confirmation and I say ‘Yes.’ Yes, Benjamin, I will be your wife! I love you and I’ve been praying and hoping, too, that you were the one and that you would choose me!” She smiled and laughed out loud, shouting “Hallelujah,” and began dancing around. Ben stood up and Rebecca ran into his arms and gave him a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek. Ben lifted Rebecca and swung her around, laughing, praising Adonai and telling of his love for her.

They stopped dancing and Ben took both of Rebecca’s hands in his and facing her he said, “I will always protect you.”

Rebecca replied: “Ben, I will respect you, and I will honor you. I will listen to you. I will pray for you.”

Then and there he prayed that God would orchestrate the timing of the wedding and that he would give them much self-control and that he would train them and use them for His kingdom.

They slowly retraced their steps back to Beit Immanuel, talking the whole way about their dreams for their future. They married eighteen months after their first meeting, just shortly after Ben took the Tennessee State Bar exam. The wedding band that he then slipped on her finger was a platinum casting of the seashell that he had found on the beach in Israel. Rebecca often wore the fragile original seashell as a necklace, on a light gold chain.

Following law school, Ben’s first job was with a firm in Nashville. In Nashville, Ben and Rebecca found Beth Israel, a small Messianic Jewish congregation. A few of the members of the congregation were standoffish and associated only with other Jewish Believers. They thought of Ben and Rebecca as a “mixed” couple. But most of the congregation was friendly.

Discouraged to find that a small, vocal minority of members of Beth Israel were over-legalistic and some too rabbinical, Ben and Rebecca were happy to find a new congregation when they eventually moved to rural Muddy Pond, Tennessee.

Rebecca had grown up in Richmond, but many of her childhood friends in her homeschooling co-op group had lived in the country outside town. This made Rebecca long for a home in the country, a large garden, and livestock. It was not until the Fieldings moved to Muddy Pond that her dream came true. Drawing on the wisdom and experience of Dorris, a widowed “ex-hippie” grandmother who lived just a quarter mile away, Rebecca